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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26594485">These Evidences of Respect</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramarie/pseuds/latecamellia'>latecamellia (caramarie)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>ATEEZ (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Transformation, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:54:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,013</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26594485</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramarie/pseuds/latecamellia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When San sneaks in to steal from a wizard, it’s not a surprise when things turn out badly for him. Except that maybe being a wizard’s cat isn’t the worst thing in the world.</p><p>Maybe it’s even a good thing.</p><p>(Yes, this was inspired by the Black Cat Nero performance.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Choi Jongho/Choi San</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>111</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Is this the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written? Quite possibly. But I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it ♥</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>San wouldn’t have tried to steal from a wizard, if it weren’t for someone saying, ‘I bet you won’t.’ After that he had no choice but to sneak into the wizard’s house. Was it foolhardy? Yes. Was it any more likely to get San into trouble than anything else in his life? Probably not.</p><p>He’d just intended to get in, find something he could pawn, find something he could show off, get out.</p><p>He didn’t even make it past the kitchen.</p><p>The wizard had left a pot of stew on the stove, and San hadn’t eaten all day. Of all the things you could steal from someone, food was about the least offensive, wasn’t it? The wizard would hardly notice if the stew sat lower in the pot than it had when he left.</p><p>Yes, the food San probably could have gotten away with – if he hadn’t followed it up with a nap in the pantry. When he woke up, it was because the pantry door had opened, and a very startled wizard was standing in the doorway.</p><p>He was younger than San had realised.</p><p>San should have made to run, but there wasn’t anywhere <em>to</em> run – only out past a pissed-off wizard. At which point San could only hold his hands in surrender.</p><p>That was how he ended up being turned into a cat.</p>
<hr/><p>It was easier for a cat to try and escape past someone than for a boy – unfortunately, the wizard was fast, and he managed to grab San round the middle. He lifted him up in front of himself.</p><p>‘Stop that,’ he said, when San tried to wriggle from his grip, ‘or I’ll turn you into a mouse next.’</p><p>A mouse seemed a worse thing to be than a cat, so San stopped struggling. ‘Good boy,’ the wizard said. He settled San properly in his arms to carry him out the kitchen. ‘Maybe we can improve your manners, huh?’</p><p>San didn’t think cats were particularly known for their manners, but he wasn’t in any position to argue. While turning into a cat didn’t seem to have affected his thought processes, it had left him unable to vocalise. Except to meow. Which he did, to register his displeasure at the whole situation.</p><p>The wizard made a meowing sound back at San. This wasn’t some form of cat language that San was now miraculously able to comprehend; the wizard was just being a dick.</p><p>‘That’s what you sound like,’ he said, ‘<em>mrow</em>.’ The wizard sat down on the floor in the living room, with San on his knee, and he petted San’s head again, but San shimmied from his grip, and went to stand in the corner of the room with his back up.</p><p>‘You can’t go anywhere,’ the wizard said. He sounded tired. ‘You need me to turn you back into a person.’ The wizard laid down on the floor then, which wasn’t the sort of behaviour San would have expected from a wizard. ‘So be a good little cat, and maybe I’ll consider it.’</p><p>San crept a little closer. Maybe the wizard had been in a duel, and that was why he was so tired he had to lie on the bare floor? San sniffed his hand, but the wizard didn’t smell like he was hurt.</p><p>The hand moved, and caressed San around the ears.</p><p>San hissed, and went and hid under a table.</p><p>‘That’s not being a good little cat!’ the wizard called out. But at that point, San was too freaked out to care. Wasn’t it normal behaviour anyway, for a cat in a new place to find somewhere dark to hide, and not to come out until it was ready? San seemed to remember that, from when he’d been young.</p><p>So he stayed under the table, and for a time the wizard let him be.</p>
<hr/><p>Later, after the wizard had put out the lights and presumably gone to bed, San set about exploring the house. He could see a lot better in the dark as a cat than as a human, and his reduced size made the whole affair more exciting than it would otherwise have been. Even the places he couldn’t see, he could jump to – he could jump onto shelves, and stick his nose into places, and wind his way past bowls and jars and a variety of wizarding paraphernalia.</p><p>One jump he miscalculated, and knocked a bowl on the floor. He looked down on it disinterestedly, only to start when he heard a door slide open. The wizard cast a light, and San jumped back down to the floor, to run and hide under the table. He was half under before the wizard caught him, and subjected him to the indignity of being carried again.</p><p>‘Good cats don’t go around knocking their owners things over at night,’ the wizard said. But this time, when San tried to slip from his grasp, the wizard let him go. San jumped to the floor, and began, for reasons he didn’t quite understand – except that it made his dignity feel better – to clean himself.</p><p>The wizard looked down on him with amusement, which only made cleanliness feel more imperative.</p><p>‘Try and settle down, why don’t you?’ the wizard said, and went back to bed.</p><p>San waited until the house was quiet. And then he went back to exploring again.</p><p>He didn’t find any exits he could use. He did find the wizard had put down some water for him, and some scraps of raw meat, and if San had been unable to resist free food as a human, he certainly couldn’t as a cat, so he ate the wizard’s food for a second time. Then he went back to his spot under the table, and he curled up and went to sleep.</p>
<hr/><p>He woke in the morning to the wizard calling for him – calling ‘puss puss puss’, which San thought it better not to respond to.</p><p>The wizard found him anyway, peering under the table and declaring, ‘There you are!’</p><p>San shifted his ears back.</p><p>‘You’re not going to catch any mice if you stay under there,’ the wizard said. He reached under the table with one hand, and San batted at him; not with his claws out, but as a warning. He didn’t think it was likely a wizard’s house had any mice anyway. Unless there were more people he’d turned into animals? That was a concerning thought. But San hadn’t <em>smelt</em> any other animals.</p><p>‘Oh, be like that,’ the wizard said, when San didn’t come out. He ate his own breakfast, sitting at the table.</p><p>San thought about attacking his feet.</p><p>His nose twitched. And then he thought, <em>no, no</em> – he couldn’t go around attacking the wizard’s feet just because they were there. Was he going to become more like a cat, the longer he stayed this way? He had better behave, then, so that the wizard would change him back. <em>No, not even when his toes moved.</em> He wasn’t ever going to attack anyone’s feet.</p><p>After breakfast, the wizard washed the dishes (this really seemed like something he should be able to do with magic) and he set out some meat for San. San watched him from a safe distance. The wizard didn’t try and call him to eat – probably knowing a boy who was currently a cat wouldn’t want to demean himself by eating like a cat where someone could see him.</p><p>It was pretty weird though. He’d turned San into a cat for stealing his food, but now San <em>was</em> a cat, he was going to feed him for free? That made no sense.</p><p>After that, the wizard took a delivery from a woman who called him Choi Jongho and poked her head in and said, ‘Oh, you got a cat.’</p><p>‘Yes,’ the wizard who was called Jongho said. ‘I found a rat in the pantry, so I thought I’d better.’</p><p>‘Ah, well, a cat should solve that for you.’</p><p>‘We’ll see,’ Jongho said. He looked over at San with an amused expression. ‘He’s yet to prove himself on the rat-catching front.’</p><p>San meowed at him. And then, to be contrary, he went over to the open doorway to wind his way around the woman’s legs. She crouched down and gave him her hand to sniff. She smelt alright, so San let her scratch him under the chin.</p><p>‘He’s friendly, isn’t he?’ the woman said.</p><p>‘Apparently he is.’</p><p>‘Yes,’ she said to San, ‘you’ll catch lots of rats, won’t you?’</p><p>San wasn’t sure about the whole rat-catching business. He liked being crooned to, though, so he meowed back, as if to say, <em>yes, yes, I’ll be the best ratcatcher in the world</em>.</p><p>Once the woman had left, he made himself scarce again, lest Jongho make any comment about his behaviour. Still, he kept the wizard where he could see him.</p><p>The wizard spent the morning categorising the bundles of herbs the woman had brought him (magical herbs?), copying out some heavy-looking book (possibly a spell book?), and making himself lunch (non-magically). It wasn’t really what San had expected from a wizard. There should have been more consultations with rich aristocrats, or conjuring up rice from thin air. He felt disappointed, if he were honest.</p><p>At least when Jongho went out that afternoon, San could imagine he were going to do a job for some wealthy merchant.</p><p>While he was gone, San took care of his own business – ate, and cleaned himself, and at last sat on the table in a spot where the sun shone warmed his fur. That felt good, and so he fell asleep there.</p><p>The sun had gone by the time Jongho arrived back. San opened one eye, but didn’t bother to hide.</p><p>‘Cats shouldn’t be on the table,’ Jongho said, but he didn’t object when San stayed where he was. He sat down with a sigh, and the two of them looked at one another.</p><p>Jongho leaned against the table with his chin on his hands. ‘Are you a good cat?’ he asked.</p><p>San stood and stretched. He didn’t get off the table, but he let Jongho reach out and pat him, because … because why? Because he did want to be a good cat if it meant he got fed, and if it meant he could laze around and sleep all day. He’d been alive long enough to know that life wasn’t easy for people like him, and that things didn’t get easier as you got older. So it would be okay, he thought, if he just enjoyed being a cat for a while.</p><p>Jongho patted him for a bit, and then he got up with a groan and went about his evening chores. San followed him around, but nothing particularly magical happened. Maybe the wizard had spent all his energy turning San into a cat, and that was why he seemed so tired. Maybe he should have turned <em>himself</em> into a cat instead, and then he could have slept all day too. Surely he could have charmed someone into feeding him. The nice lady who’d brought him herbs. Anyone.</p><p>After an intriguing dinner (that he insisted cats wouldn’t like), Jongho sat down to read. San dithered for a while, looking at him from across the room, but eventually he went and sat down beside Jongho. He curled himself tightly into a ball, and Jongho patted him idly. San meowed at him, but Jongho just meowed back.</p><p>Wizards, San thought, were sillier than he had thought.</p>
<hr/><p>He kept being a good cat. He wouldn’t get on Jongho’s lap, but he would lie down beside him, so that they shared warmth. Maybe he <em>would</em> turn into a real cat if he were left like this long enough. Maybe that wasn’t so bad. It was hard to want to turn back, when he could spend his days sleeping in the sun, or looking out on strangers caught in the rain, and be glad he didn’t have to go out himself.</p><p>Jongho was often out though. San wouldn’t have said that he missed him, exactly – except that if Jongho was late back, San would find himself waiting for him. He would look balefully at him on his return, and then Jongho would say things like, ‘Aw, did I leave you on your own all day?’ in a silly baby voice, and scoop San into his arms. And San thought that Jongho was glad to be waited for.</p>
<hr/><p>Things went on like this for a couple weeks, until San woke up one night, suddenly too big to fit under the table. There was some banging as he extricated himself, and then Jongho was standing in the doorway with a light, dressed in his sleeping robe. </p><p>‘Is it that time already?’ Jongho said.</p><p>‘You turned me back!’ San sounded offended even to himself – like if Jongho was going to turn him back, he could at least have done it while San was awake. At least his clothes had reappeared with him.</p><p>Jongho walked over to set the table right. ‘I didn’t turn you back,’ he said. ‘It’s part of the spell. It’s what … the new moon?’</p><p>‘So?’</p><p>‘So you’ll turn back again tomorrow.’</p><p>San didn’t know what to say to that. He felt odd, being back in his own body so suddenly. And then to be told that it wouldn’t stick?</p><p>‘But you could take the spell off,’ San said. At least if he could talk for the moment, he could argue this. ‘I’ve learned my lesson, okay? No more stealing from wizards; I get it.’</p><p>‘I’d thought you might apply the lesson more widely,’ Jongho said drily.</p><p>San shut his mouth. He couldn’t say that he wouldn’t steal again, not when he didn’t even have a real home to go back to.</p><p>Jongho sighed. ‘I’m going back to bed,’ he said.</p><p>San crossed the room and grabbed hold of his wrist to stop him. ‘You won’t turn me back to normal?’</p><p>Jongho shook his head. He didn’t meet San’s eyes.</p><p>‘I’ve been good,’ San said. His grip on Jongho’s wrist grew tighter. </p><p>Jongho just shook his head.</p><p>And San had thought they were getting along. He’d sat next to Jongho the night before, and he’d even, briefly, before he’d realised what he was doing, purred.</p><p>‘Then what?’ San said. ‘What do you want from me?’ Was Jongho just going to keep him as a pet? Forever? That hadn’t seem so bad a thought when he was a cat – now he was a human it seemed abominable.</p><p>‘I just can’t at the moment,’ Jongho said. ‘That’s all.’ He pulled his hand free, and he went back to the bedroom.</p><p>San followed him. ‘You can’t? Or you won’t?’</p><p>‘Stop arguing, or I will turn you into a mouse instead.’</p><p>‘You will not,’ San said. ‘You like having a cat too much.’</p><p>Jongho made a face, and he sat down on his bed. Like he really was going to go back to sleep.</p><p>‘You know you can just <em>get</em> a cat,’ San said, crossing his arms. ‘You don’t need me.’</p><p>‘But you’re already here,’ Jongho muttered.</p><p>Maybe he <em>couldn’t</em> turn San back to normal. Maybe there was some ingredient he needed, or the moon was in the wrong phase. San had to believe it was that he couldn’t, and not that he wouldn’t.</p><p>‘Are you gonna stand there all night?’ Jongho asked. ‘I was hoping to get some sleep.’</p><p>‘I was a cat,’ San said. ‘I was asleep under the table. I can’t go back under the table – I won’t fit.’</p><p>‘So sleep in the bed with me.’ Jongho said. ‘I don’t get why you don’t do that anyway.’</p><p>San stared at him, and Jongho shuffled over on the bedclothes so that there was, probably, room for one human-sized San.</p><p>He should have just slept in the pantry again. It wasn’t like he needed to sleep on a mattress, even as a human. But as he was being given the option ...</p><p>San slept beside Jongho, and kept his back to him. It was the same sort of arbitrary boundary as only sitting beside him as a cat, and not on his knee. As if he hadn’t already conceded on what mattered.</p>
<hr/><p>In the morning, Jongho decided to drag San to the baths with him. San tried to argue that he was clean but Jongho said loudly, ‘With your tongue,’ and San felt embarrassed enough that he went along with it.</p><p>It was odd, leaving the house. The world seemed bigger and noisier than it ever had before, so full of movement that it left San on edge.</p><p>He hoped they didn’t run into anyone he knew. Not that he knew anyone who’d be at a bathhouse this early in the day … but what would he say to them if they were? <em>Yes, I got caught by a wizard and now I’m his pet? </em>He’d die, if they ran into anyone he knew.</p><p>Outside of the bath attendant, though, the only people they had to make conversation with were some old men in the changing rooms. That, thankfully, was the extent of San’s human interaction.</p><p>Once he was in, San stayed in the water a very long time – until Jongho threatened to leave him there. Then San got out and dried himself off and got dressed – ordinary human things that felt awkward already.</p><p>San didn’t want to waste his time as a human like this.</p><p>Outside a food cart, San stopped Jongho with a hand on his sleeve. Jongho looked between San and the cart.</p><p>‘You want me to buy you something?’</p><p>San nodded, his eyes on the ground.</p><p>‘You are a pet,’ Jongho said, in a voice only San could hear. He went to the cart, though, and he bought them both pancakes. They ate them on the way back to the house, getting sticky syrup on their clean fingers. Sweet food felt like a novelty, something precious.</p><p>The neighbour waved at them when they got back.</p><p>‘Your master was looking for you,’ he said to Jongho. And then, looking at San, ‘Who’s this?’</p><p>‘Oh –’ Jongho looked at San.</p><p>‘I’m San.’ He lifted the pancake wrapper and said, ‘We got pancakes,’ as if that were the only explanation his presence required.</p><p>‘Thanks for letting me know,’ Jongho said, urging San inside. ‘Sorry you were disturbed.’</p><p>The neighbour waved it off. Then Jongho was following San in, and he shut the door firmly behind them.</p><p>‘Your name’s San?’ he asked.</p><p>‘Yup.’ San licked his sticky fingers, and screwed up the pancake wrapper. ‘You have a master?’</p><p>‘Who did you think taught me magic?’ Jongho said. He sounded more unhappy than sarcastic.</p><p>‘I didn’t think about it,’ San said. ‘I thought all you wizards were independent anyway.’</p><p>‘We’re not.’ Jongho took the wrapper from him, to put it away in the rubbish.</p><p>San felt strangely as if he’d said something wrong. Probably Jongho didn’t want him to ask questions. Cats weren’t meant to ask questions. Or to have names you didn’t give them. Or to turn into boys, ever.</p><p>Jongho went to wash his hands, and then he said, ‘I have to go out again.’</p><p>‘You have to attend your master?’</p><p>‘Yeah.’</p><p>San shrugged at him. ‘If you have to, you have to.’ He looked about the kitchen appraisingly.</p><p>Jongho looked at him with an expression that was slightly apprehensive.</p><p>‘What?’ San said. ‘I’m not going to cause any trouble. I still want you to turn me back into a person, don’t I?’</p><p>Apparently that was enough of a surety that Jongho left San in the house alone. It was more boring being a person than a cat, though. He tried looking through Jongho’s books, but they were full of writing he couldn’t read. Nothing said straightforwardly, <em>how to change a cat back into a boy</em>. As if San could have used that information if they had.</p><p>He went back to the kitchen instead, and ate out of the pot. And then he thought maybe he should try and cook something for them to have for dinner. Something different, because he had the feeling that Jongho ate the same every night.</p><p>San wasn’t a very good cook, but he had time. He was pretty sure he could manage not to burn the house down, at least.</p>
<hr/><p>Jongho took long enough getting home that San got antsy waiting. Was it Jongho’s master who kept him out all the time, he wondered, rather than rich merchants or scholars with ghost problems? If Jongho was running around after his master, then how was he meant to earn money to use on things like presents for cats?</p><p>No, San wasn’t a cat though. He had to remember that. It was the being a cat that was unusual, not the being a human.</p><p>San was lying on the floor with a cushion over his head when Jongho got back. He sat up abruptly when he heard the door.</p><p>‘Sorry I’m late,’ Jongho called out. No baby-talk that evening – he sounded as if he were expecting to be told off.</p><p>‘I made dinner,’ San said.</p><p>‘I saw that. You didn’t have to.’</p><p>‘Well,’ San said, and he hugged the cushion to himself, ‘you’ve been feeding me for the last few weeks.’ Idly, he added, ‘I haven’t even caught any rats.’</p><p>‘Have you seen any?’</p><p>San shook his head.</p><p>‘Then you couldn’t catch any, could you?’</p><p>Jongho brought the food out. It was strange, to eat around a table – San felt like a child again. Like he was still with his parents, and they’d tell him off if he gestured too wildly with his chopsticks, or if he tried to steal his sister’s food …</p><p>‘You must’ve been pretty bored,’ Jongho said.</p><p>San shrugged.</p><p>‘I’m sorry I don’t know how to turn you back into a human,’ Jongho said glumly.</p><p>San stopped with his food halfway to his mouth. He put the food down. ‘You don’t know how?’</p><p>Jongho nodded. He got up and left the room – when he came back, he was carrying a bottle of liquor. San felt increasingly unsettled.</p><p>Jongho poured for both of them.</p><p>‘I messed up the conditions,’ he said. ‘I should have defined the curse properly, but I didn’t. I’m sorry.’</p><p>He drank, and San did not.</p><p>‘So I’m stuck like this?’</p><p>‘I’m trying to work out how to reverse it,’ Jongho said. He slouched lower over the table. ‘I’m not a very good wizard.’</p><p>‘Don’t say that!’</p><p>‘It’s true. I’m always forgetting theorems, or – ‘ He stopped talking, seeing the expression on San’s face. ‘Sorry. You don’t want to hear this from the person who turned you into a cat.’</p><p>‘You’re right, I don’t.’</p><p>Jongho looked sadly at the cup he’d just empty. Reluctantly, San refilled it, and then he tossed back his own.</p><p>‘You have to study harder,’ San said, ‘so you can turn me back.’</p><p>‘I know.’</p><p>‘I don’t want to be a cat forever.’</p><p>‘I know.’</p><p>‘So don’t go saying things like, “I’m not a very good wizard.”’</p><p>‘I won’t.’</p><p>‘Okay.’</p><p>‘Okay.’</p><p>They stared at each other. It went on for long enough that San got flustered. He broke the moment by refill Jongho’s cup again – was it a good idea to get a wizard drunk? San wasn’t sure.</p><p>But San was getting drunk too, so they were on even ground.</p><p>And cats, at least, didn’t have to worry about hangovers.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The days went on as they had before. It was hard to look forward to something as far away as the next new moon, when the only guide San had as to time was Jongho’s habits – the days deliveries were made, or when he was home in the afternoons rather than waiting on his master. Perhaps San should have realised earlier, from all the copying Jongho did, that he was less experienced a wizard than San had assumed.</p>
<p>One evening Jongho came home with a small package, which he opened to reveal a red collar. San looked at it with some alarm and tried to claw it, but Jongho tsked him off.</p>
<p>If he intended to collar San, though, it wasn’t immediately – instead he worked at the collar with a needle, like he were doing embroidery, but with thread that didn’t exist. If the thread had existed, San would have been interested – he was very interested in dangly things these days – but as it did not, San was not. He went to watch out the window instead.</p>
<p>As it got later, Jongho’s choice of activity became more difficult for San to ignore. Jongho ought to be getting ready for bed – he had to get up in the morning, after all, and feed the cat, and do all those things that were of less concern to San than his being fed on time.</p>
<p>San went to stand by the door to the bedroom, and he meowed. Maybe Jongho had lost track of time, and he needed San to remind him.</p>
<p>Jongho glanced over at him. ‘You’re bossy,’ he said. ‘I have to finish this.’</p>
<p>San meowed again.</p>
<p>‘What do you care? You don’t come to bed with me anyway.’</p>
<p>San went over and he tried to snatch the collar from Jongho again, but Jongho lifted it out of reach.</p>
<p>‘Ah-ah,’ he said warningly, ‘I need to finish. Otherwise you can’t come to the meeting with me.’</p>
<p>San didn’t know about any meeting, or care about going. He put himself on the table, right in Jongho’s way. And Jongho did scowl at him then.</p>
<p>‘You’re being a pain.’</p>
<p>That was the point, to San.</p>
<p>Jongho picked him up and shut him in the bedroom. Which was highly unfair. San scratched at the door, and he meowed, and Jongho, the traitor, ignored him.</p>
<p>San meowed until he got sick of meowing. Then he curled up on Jongho’s bed and went to sleep, thinking, <em>see Jongho try and go to bed now</em>.</p>
<p>Except all that meant was that when Jongho did come to bed, he picked San up and held onto him when he laid down. San tried to wriggle away, but Jongho was stubborn.</p>
<p>‘Why you gotta be such a pain, huh?’ Jongho said.</p>
<p>San didn’t want to be a pain. He settled down, on Jongho’s chest, and Jongho sighed and stroked a hand down San’s back.</p>
<p>‘I don’t really want to go,’ Jongho said, and sighed again. ‘Never mind.’ He scratched San behind the ear. ‘You’ll be good, won’t you? Ha!’</p>
<p>Pretending to laugh was unnecessary, San thought. But oh well. It was comfortable, lying where he was. Punishing Jongho by leaving seemed like too much effort.</p>
<p>He went back to sleep. Jongho went to sleep too, after him.</p>
<hr/>
<p>In the morning, Jongho had to rush to get up, which served him right. San stayed on the bed so at least Jongho couldn’t waste time dealing with that. He was getting the hang of this being a cat business, he thought. Even being a good cat allowed you a large degree of obnoxiousness.</p>
<p>When Jongho came back in the afternoon, he had acquired a basket. A cat-sized basket, as San was quickly able to ascertain when he jumped inside it. Jongho seemed weirdly pleased by this. He popped out the room, and then came back carrying the red collar.</p>
<p>San got out the basket.</p>
<p>‘No, you can stay there,’ Jongho said, coming closer.</p>
<p>San made a dash for the table.</p>
<p>‘Oh, come on,’ Jongho said. ‘It’s a nice collar. You’ll look very handsome.’</p>
<p>San was not going to be convinced by flattery. He stayed under the table.</p>
<p>‘Come on, pusspuss. You can’t come with me if you don’t wear the collar.’</p>
<p>If Jongho wanted him to accede to this, he would use San’s name, and not call him silly things like pusspuss.</p>
<p>Jongho crouched down on the floor, lowering his head to the ground so he could see San. ‘Come on,’ Jongho said, and he reached a hand under the table.</p>
<p>That was irresistible, unfortunately; San had to attack his hand, and then Jongho was able to grab him and drag him out from under the table, enduring his claws the whole time. He held San in one arm and tried to collar him with the other. San was determined to make it difficult, but then Jongho said in an exasperated voice, ‘Do you want to be human again or not?’</p>
<p>And San stopped wriggling. Because he did want to be a human again. When he was a cat, he couldn’t ask Jongho what any of this was about; half the time he couldn’t even be bothered to wonder properly.</p>
<p>‘Good boy,’ Jongho said, and he put the collar on San. And then, as if to add to the indignity of the situation, he kissed San on the forehead. Which was most outrageous. Would he go around kissing San on the forehead if he were a boy? No, he would not.</p>
<p>‘Now,’ Jongho asked, ‘will you get in the basket nicely or do I have to bully you?’ He carried San over his shoulder as he got to his feet, which was an exciting if precarious position.</p>
<p>San supposed he could get in the basket. He had to remember that he <em>did</em> want to know what was going on. In theory.</p>
<p>So he got in the basket, and then Jongho picked the basket up (?) and he headed out the house (!) with San still in the basket (!!)</p>
<p>And then San had to curl up very tightly and pretend he was asleep. He didn’t like it, to be carried in such an insecure fashion. It wasn’t at all like when Jongho picked him up and carried him. What if Jongho dropped the basket? He would never drop San while he was carrying him normally – not even when San dug his claws in. San couldn’t feel so secure about the basket.</p>
<p>And besides, there was too much going on in the outside world. Indeed, Jongho had to stop several times, so that people or children could admire the kitty. Some of those people even insisted on petting him, which Jongho did not dissuade them from. San pretended to sleep through it. He was a very sleepy kitty, too sleepy to sit up and be admired. The worst of it was when someone complimented his collar; San did twitch his ears back then, because that sort of insult was just uncalled for.</p>
<p>Eventually they got in a cab and Jongho set the basket down on the seat beside him, and San actually got to sleep for a bit.</p>
<p>And when he woke up again, Jongho was arriving at someone else’s house.</p>
<p>Jongho left the basket in the lobby, in favour of carrying San. That was alright. But then he brought him into a room full of strangers – some of whom <em>also</em> had animals. There were other cats, birds, snakes – and San did have to dig his claws into Jongho’s shoulder, seeing those.</p>
<p>Jongho tried quite strenuously not to make a face. He murmured to San, ‘It’s alright. Don’t freak out.’</p>
<p>And San was thinking, <em>snakes!</em></p>
<p>But Jongho shhed at him, and that was oddly calming. So San withdrew his claws, and Jongho patted his head. Maybe he’d done a spell on San, to make him feel relaxed about the snakes and the other animals. Or maybe San-the-cat was just very susceptible to being shhed.</p>
<p>Jongho went around the room and made small talk about people San didn’t know, and the impressive feats of magic they’d achieved (which had nothing to do with turning cats back into boys). At one point he sat down and chatted to another young wizard for a good fifteen minutes, and that was pleasant because San could sit on his lap and keep an eye on the rest of the room.</p>
<p>Why Jongho had wanted to bring him to this, San didn’t know. Was it just the in thing for wizards to have animals with them when they went out? Were all the animals magical animals? He didn’t think they could all be transformed people – there weren’t <em>that</em> many rumours about wizards turning people into animals – but maybe some of them were.</p>
<p>Later the meeting became more formal, and at that point San gave up on caution and went to sleep.</p>
<p>He woke up again later when Jongho was approached by an older man, who said, ‘What is that animal?’</p>
<p>‘Oh,’ Jongho said, ‘I thought I’d like a familiar.’ He put a nervous hand on San’s back.</p>
<p>‘You don’t need to waste time with that,’ the man said. He looked at San as if he were considering turning him into snake food. The man didn’t have a snake with him, but he seemed like a snake sort of man.</p>
<p>‘It’s not that much time,’ Jongho said. ‘Cats mostly take care of themselves, after all –’ He was stroking San more urgently, though it was hard to tell which of them he was trying to reassure.</p>
<p>‘What do you do to its collar?’ the man asked, and he reached out a hand. San drew back and hissed at him.</p>
<p>‘San, don’t,’ Jongho said, as the older wizard snapped his fingers.</p>
<p>The collar felt very hot for a moment, and then cool again, but at that point San was already off Jongho’s knee and behind a room divider.</p>
<p>‘He’s not very well behaved,’ the older wizard said in a dry voice.</p>
<p>San found he was hissing again even from behind the divider.</p>
<p>‘I know. I’m sorry,’ Jongho said. Which wasn’t like Jongho at all. ‘I’ll train him better.’ As if San were trained at all. <em>Dogs</em> got trained, not cats; cats did what they liked and if they liked to hide behind room dividers, well, so be it.</p>
<p>Except then San spotted the younger wizard Jongho had been talking to earlier, making coaxing motions with his hands. He was probably safe enough. San went to sniff his fingers, and bumped his head against him, and then hid beside his feet, while Jongho spoke to – or was spoken to by – the older wizard.</p>
<p>Later Jongho came to join them again, and he said despondently, ‘How come he likes you already?’</p>
<p>‘I’m just trustworthy like that,’ the other wizard said. ‘You didn’t talk to your teacher before you got him?’</p>
<p>‘No, he just showed up one day,’ Jongho said.</p>
<p>‘Ah-huh,’ the other wizard said. ‘You got suckered.’</p>
<p>‘I did not get suckered.’</p>
<p>‘You did. Didn’t he, puss? He got suckered.’ The other wizard scratched San around the chin, and continued to endear himself to him.</p>
<p>Jongho scowled a little at that, but let it pass.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Overall, San had to conclude that wizard’s meetings were not worth the trouble. If, however, Jongho wanted to occasionally invite over other wizards who weren’t mean, and who liked cats, that would be acceptable. Of course, he had no way to communicate this to Jongho. Unless maybe he clawed up the basket? He considered that in the cab on the way home, but when he tried chewing at the handle, Jongho scolded him.</p>
<p>He’d try properly later.</p>
<p>Jongho had seemed lively enough in front of the others, but once they were home, he seemed down. He was sighing a lot, as he moved around the kitchen. Then he came to sit down next to San with a pot of tea, and he sighed an even bigger sigh.</p>
<p>‘I guess it could have been worse,’ he said. He fingered the collar around San’s neck, and when San sat up straighter, he took it off him. He tossed it down on the table.</p>
<p>‘Are you a waste of time, do you think?’ Jongho said. He held his hand out in front of San, like he wanted to be attacked. San touched his nose to Jongho’s fingers instead, and Jongho screwed his face up.</p>
<p>‘I know, he said. ‘I know.’</p>
<p>San <em>didn’t </em>know. Jongho wasn’t very good at explaining his thoughts when San was a cat. But he got up on Jongho’s knee anyway, so Jongho could pat him properly.</p>
<p>Jongho drank his tea.</p>
<p>San kept him company.</p>
<p>There was nothing else he could do.</p>
<hr/>
<p>In the evenings after that, Jongho came home more tired than usual. One evening he even went to bed without filling San’s water bowl, and San had to wake him up by batting his ear repeatedly. Jongho grizzled, but he eventually got up, and then he realised his mistake.</p>
<p>He moaned, and said, ‘Sorry. I’m such a useless owner, aren’t I? You should have been turned into a cat by someone who was a better wizard than me.’</p>
<p>If <em>better wizards</em> were ones like Jongho’s master, San thought he’d got off lightly. But he couldn’t say that, of course.</p>
<p>San slept on the bed with Jongho, now, when he slept at night. So when the next new moon came around, he was under the covers with Jongho’s arm over him when he transformed back. The snuggling was alright when you were a cat; it was a bit more embarrassing when you were a boy and you woke up like that.</p>
<p>Jongho was embarrassed too – he sat up very suddenly and made a light.</p>
<p>‘I forgot the date,’ he said in an abashed voice.</p>
<p>‘Mm,’ San said. He stretched himself out – it was weird to be human-sized again – and he sat up too.</p>
<p>He looked at Jongho. Jongho being the same size as him was even weirder.</p>
<p>‘You know, there was a lot of stuff I think I meant to tell you,’ San said, ‘but I’ve forgotten it all.’ San frowned, trying to remember. ‘Did I hiss at your master?’</p>
<p>‘You did. Thanks for that.’</p>
<p>San laid back down. ‘I don’t like him,’ he said. ‘You should find a new master.’</p>
<p>‘You don’t <em>like</em> him?’</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’ San looked up at Jongho, at his exasperated face. It was kind of cute.</p>
<p>‘You’re my cat,’ Jongho said. ‘I don’t think it matters whether or not you like him.’</p>
<p>‘I’m not your cat,’ San said. ‘If he were such a good master, why wouldn’t you just ask him how to take the spell off me? Why do you have to skulk around behind his back?’</p>
<p>Jongho stared at him, open-mouthed. But then he shut his mouth, and he looked away and he swallowed.</p>
<p>‘He wouldn’t see why I needed to take the spell off,’ Jongho said. He hugged his knees up against his chest. ‘He’d say, “So what? Thieves get what they deserve.”’ Jongho looked at San again. ‘And he’d say I should do the spell properly next time, if I didn’t like messing it up.’</p>
<p>‘Is that the sort of thing he usually says?’ San sat up on his elbows.</p>
<p>‘Along those lines, yeah.’</p>
<p>‘You should leave him.’</p>
<p>‘Right, because someone else will be sure to take me on.’</p>
<p>‘I mean it.’ San’s heart was beating too fast, and Jongho gave him a strange look.</p>
<p>‘I know you do,’ he said. ‘But why do you care?’</p>
<p>San wasn’t sure how to answer that.</p>
<p>‘I need access to his books,’ Jongho said, ‘or I’m never going to work out how to reverse the spell. I just …’ He screwed up his hands over his face. ‘I’m so tired all the time.’</p>
<p>‘Yeah, because he overworks you,’ San said. ‘It’s not worth staying with a bad master. If it’s just me, well … honestly, being a cat’s not the worst thing to have happened in my life?’</p>
<p>Jongho looked at him, and then in a rough voice, he said, ‘You should tell me about that.’</p>
<p>‘It’s not that interesting.’</p>
<p>‘But I’m interested.’</p>
<p>And San, to his own surprise, ended up telling him.</p>
<p>It’s not that there was anything so unusual in it. Families had more kids than they could afford all the time. Kids were apprenticed to bad masters all the time. Sometimes they ran away, or sometimes they got mean themselves. And San was one of the ones who ran away, that was all.</p>
<p>But you couldn’t run back home, when you grew up like San did. You couldn’t go back home. And that’s how you ended up in a city where you knew no-one, where you couldn’t get more than daywork and it was miserable but then you were miserable anyway, so it’s not like life was any worse.</p>
<p>It wasn’t any better either, but it wasn’t any worse. But – and this part San didn’t say – being a cat <em>was</em> better.</p>
<p>Being Jongho’s cat was just about the best thing that had ever happened to him.</p>
<p>Jongho listened to San talk. He didn’t say much, but he listened. And it made San want to never leave him. Even if he could be human again, he wanted to stay beside Jongho.</p>
<p>He felt raw and exposed afterwards, but Jongho reached out, and he took San’s hand in his. He didn’t say anything, but he kept San company.</p>
<p>Maybe that was all anyone ever wanted – in a pet or in a companion. Whichever they were. Whichever San could be.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They both slept late the next morning. San stayed in bed after Jongho got him, listening to him move about the house.</p>
<p>‘Do you have to be anywhere today?’ San called out.</p>
<p>‘Huh?’ Jongho poked his head out the kitchen. ‘Yeah, I’m meant to check in later.’</p>
<p>‘Can’t you magic a doppelganger to do that for you?’</p>
<p>‘I think he’d notice,’ Jongho said. Which suggested to San it was something Jongho <em>could</em> do. San didn’t know why he talked as if he wasn’t any good.</p>
<p>‘He might be impressed,’ San said, ‘with your moxy.’</p>
<p>Jongho snorted, and went back into the kitchen.</p>
<p>San rolled over onto his stomach and he thought about getting up. He should be making the most of his time as a human, after all. But it seemed pointless if Jongho weren’t going to be around.</p>
<p>Which was bad. San shouldn’t be thinking about him this way; Jongho was still intending to turn San back into a human, after all. Then San would be back out on the street. Just because San had kept him company as a cat, and slept in his bed …</p>
<p>San got up. In the kitchen, Jongho was making them breakfast. San came to watch him from the doorway. Despite his usually unadventurous diet, Jongho moved efficiently and confidently in the kitchen.</p>
<p>‘Did you have something you wanted to do today?’ Jongho asked, over his shoulder.</p>
<p>San shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Go out somewhere. Not in a basket.’</p>
<p>Jongho laughed a little. He turned to face San.</p>
<p>‘I guess you would have said if there were, but … there’s no-one who should know where you are? No friends? Girlfriend?’</p>
<p>‘The friends I had …’ San said. ‘It doesn’t really matter.’</p>
<p>‘That’s harsh.’</p>
<p>San shrugged again. ‘It’s probably good for your reputation.’</p>
<p>‘It’s what?’</p>
<p>‘I came here and I disappeared. That means you shouldn’t be messed with.’</p>
<p>Jongho stared at him. ‘I can see how you got to that conclusion, but I’m not sure …’</p>
<p>‘That wasn’t what you were going for? When you –’ San clicked his fingers.</p>
<p>Jongho pulled a face, and he turned back to the stovetop. Stood there, still. ’Maybe I was,’ he said.</p>
<p>San had the sudden urge to go up and hug him, then. It was one of the effects of spending so much time as a cat; he’d gotten used to an excessive amount of physical contact. He told himself that was all it was.</p>
<p>‘The soup’s ready,’ Jongho said.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They ate together – quietly, because apparently Jongho was in a pensive mood. San didn’t really mind; he was enjoying eating human food for a change. Indeed, he finished a lot more quickly than Jongho did, and then felt some kind of glutton. Jongho looked at him with amusement though.</p>
<p>‘It was good,’ San said. ‘You’re a good cook.’</p>
<p>‘It’s not worth the effort when it’s just me,’ Jongho said, but he seemed pleased. And honestly, if San were a teacher of Jongho’s, he would have complimented him all the time just to see him look like that.</p>
<p>‘Are you sure you have to go out?’ San asked.</p>
<p>Jongho hesitated. ‘Maybe if I go early,’ he said, ‘I can come back in the afternoon.’ He met San’s eyes, looking unsure. ‘You really want to spend the day together?’</p>
<p>‘I do.’ He could have put provisos on it, made himself sound more ambivalent … but what was the point of that?</p>
<p>Jongho bit his lip. And then he said, ‘Okay,’ and he started eating again.</p>
<p>San felt like he’d won something, just in that.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They made the trip to Jongho’s master’s house togeher. It was across the city from where Jongho lived, something which made no sense in terms of travel time, but which made perfect emotional sense when San considered it. He wouldn’t want to live too close to a master like that. Although maybe wizards that old had learned to teleport, so it might not make much difference … hadn’t the master come to check on Jongho the previous month?</p>
<p>‘I’ll show you where it is,’ Jongho said, when they had reached the right street. ‘Then you can go ... I don’t know, drink tea or something.’</p>
<p>‘I don’t have any money,’ San said. There were a lot more trees in this area of town, he noted, and the houses came with gardens. A cat could go outside without fear of being trampled. ‘Do you think they’ll arrest me if I loiter too long?’ A nice area like this, they probably would. Which was fair, when you considered San’s history of sneaking into wizard’s houses with the intention of stealing from them. Amongst other things.</p>
<p>Except Jongho went into his bag, and he pulled out a handful of coins, which he gave to San. Just like that.</p>
<p>‘Um,’ San said.</p>
<p>‘I’m already feeding you,’ Jongho said. ‘This isn’t any different.’</p>
<p>San took the money. It was easier, he supposed, to accept someone’s largesse when you were a cat – in fact, as a cat you just took it as your due. As a human, it was less straightforward.</p>
<p>‘How will I know when you’re done?’</p>
<p>‘I’ll find you.’</p>
<p>‘With magic.’</p>
<p>‘I don’t know, I might just walk down the street calling, “Here, puss puss puss.”’</p>
<p>‘You’re not funny.’</p>
<p>Jongho shot him a grin, like that was the right answer.</p>
<p>The wizard’s house didn’t look any different from the other houses, when Jongho pointed it out to him. It was a disappointment, really. Even the trees were only artfully asymmetric, in a manicured way, rather than being impressively old or gnarly.</p>
<p>‘You’ll be alright?’ Jongho asked. Maybe because San was frowning, although that was directed at the house and its big yard rather than at the prospect of drinking tea by himself for however long Jongho was going to be.</p>
<p>‘Sure,’ San said. ‘You better go in.’</p>
<p>Jongho nodded, but he looked worriedly at San as he went for the gate. San waved at him, and then, when Jongho went inside, headed back down toward the shopping streets.</p>
<p>What was he doing? Was he acting like this only because he knew he’d be a cat again tomorrow, and it was in his interest to suck up to Jongho in the interim? No, he really did want to spend the day with him. He didn’t want to have to watch him walk up the path to his stupid master’s house. The old man didn’t deserve Jongho’s dancing attendance on him.</p>
<p>San found somewhere to have tea and sweets, and he waited.</p>
<hr/>
<p>He was starting to think he might have to find something more substantial than sweets to eat, when Jongho came to find him. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he called, cheeks pink like he’d been running.</p>
<p>‘You got away?’ San said.</p>
<p>‘Eventually.’ Jongho slid into the seat beside him. He stopped to smile at the waitress as she brought another cup for the tea, then he turned his attention back to San. ‘I told him I was behind on the latest copy.’</p>
<p>‘I wanted to ask,’ San said, ‘what has making copies got to do with studying magic?’</p>
<p>‘Well, nothing if you’ve already read them,’ Jongho said. ‘But they don’t like paying ordinary clerks to make copies, because then they start to think about trying things out themselves. That usually doesn’t go well.’</p>
<p>‘Or maybe they just charge more,’ San said.</p>
<p>‘What?’</p>
<p>‘You know.’</p>
<p>They were interrupted by the offer of more sweets, which Jongho declined. ‘We should have lunch soon anyway,’ he said, and San nodded.</p>
<p>He was getting too used to regular meals, he thought. But then, it wasn’t as if he could store them up against future deprivations – it would just be the harder, later.</p>
<p>It would be hard anyway.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They ended up buying packed lunches, and taking them to the public gardens on the edge of town. Because it was a nice day, and because it made a good change for an indoors cat. A good change, to walk upright and breath the fresh air, and say hello to strangers with words that came out naturally, as if you hadn’t been without speech for the last month.</p>
<p>‘I’ll race you to the top of the hill,’ San said, once they were at the park.</p>
<p>‘What?’</p>
<p>But San had set off ahead of thim, and Jongho had to try and catch up. San let him – at least, until they were almost at the top, and then, San put on an extra burst of speed. Jongho cursed after him.</p>
<p>They collapsed together at the top of the hill. From here, the whole city was spread out before them, and the place where they lived seemed small and distant. Jongho’s master lived more closely, of course, and San leaned forward, trying to pick it out of the rooftops. They all looked the same from here.</p>
<p>Jongho wasn’t looking at the city though; he was looking at San.</p>
<p>‘What?’ San said, when he caught his eye. But Jongho smiled and shook his head.</p>
<p>‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Shall we eat?’</p>
<p>They shared the two lunchboxes between them.</p>
<p>‘So how come you don’t still live with your master?’ San asked, as they ate. ‘Wouldn’t that be normal?’</p>
<p>‘Technically, I’m not an apprentice any more,’ Jongho said. ‘And I think you already worked out why I might not want to live with him.’</p>
<p>San looked at him in surprise. ‘But you’re still there all the time.’</p>
<p>‘Yeah, well, I can’t exactly say no. I’m trying to get back in his good books at the moment, remember? After someone made a fuss at the meeting.’</p>
<p>“He was going to touch me!’</p>
<p>‘You let people touch you all the time. You were all over Yunho.’</p>
<p>‘Only nice people.’</p>
<p>‘How would you even know?’</p>
<p>‘I just do. Cats know.’</p>
<p>Jongho held off a moment. Then he said, ‘I’m the one who turned you into a cat. Am I still a nice person?’</p>
<p>For a moment, San didn’t know how to answer – not with Jongho looking at him so intently, with his big dark eyes. He felt suddenly flustered. ‘You feed me, don’t you?’ he said, and gestured at their lunch.</p>
<p>‘So you’d like anyone who fed you.’</p>
<p>‘Wouldn’t you?’</p>
<p>‘No.’ Jongho seemed completely serious.</p>
<p>‘I guess it depends,’ San said, ‘on what they’re getting out of it.’ Because it wasn’t true, was it, that San had liked everyone who’d fed him? Because people expected different things out of it.</p>
<p>Jongho, he thought, just wanted company. San didn’t mind keeping him company. No, San wanted to keep him company.</p>
<p>‘If you can’t turn me back into a human,’ San said, ‘will you keep feeding me forever?’</p>
<p>‘Yeah,’ Jongho said, ‘you’re my cat.’</p>
<p>‘People get rid of pets all the time.’</p>
<p>‘Not me.’</p>
<p>San looked him in the eye. ‘What if I live a really long time? Like, as long as a person, not a cat.’</p>
<p>‘You’re gonna live as long as a person!’</p>
<p>‘What if you get a girlfriend and she doesn’t like cats?’</p>
<p>‘I’m not gonna –’ With San watching him, Jongho started to blush. ‘That won’t happen.’</p>
<p>‘You won’t get a girlfriend, or you won’t get a girlfriend who doesn’t like cats?’</p>
<p>‘Does it make a difference?’</p>
<p>‘Yeah,’ San said. ‘I might hate all your girlfriends.’ </p>
<p>Jongho laughed, but it was more surprised than mean. ‘I don’t think you have to worry about that.’</p>
<p>Now San was starting to blush.</p>
<p>He couldn’t have a crush on the man who had turned him into a cat. He couldn’t have a crush on someone whose bed he had slept in, who he could only talk to once a month. Even if that person did promise to keep him forever.</p>
<p>‘And what if you <em>can</em> turn me back into a human?’ San asked.</p>
<p>‘You still don’t have to worry.’</p>
<p>‘You don’t even know me, really.’</p>
<p>‘You waited up for me, you know. And you made me dinner.’</p>
<p>This was too emotional for San’s state of mind. ‘You just said someone feeding you wasn’t a good enough reason to like them.’</p>
<p>‘That’s not what I actually said.’</p>
<p>‘You’re contradicting yourself, Choi Jongho.’</p>
<p>‘I am not,’ Jongho said, but he was smiling. ‘I said I wouldn’t like just <em>anyone</em> who fed me. That’s a different thing.’</p>
<p>‘Is it?’</p>
<p>‘It is.’ Jongho leaned over toward him, still completely willing to look San in the eye while he made ridiculous suggestions. Like that San wasn’t <em>just anyone</em>. ‘And besides, you only cooked the food I already bought.’</p>
<p>San laughed, and then he hit Jongho in the arm in pretend outrage and real emotion, and Jongho let himself be hit, and kept smiling.</p>
<p>And San really did want to stay with him forever.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Somehow, San managed to make it through the whole day without declaring that out loud. And then, too, to go to bed without jumping him. It was too soon, still, to trust his own feelings. And there were feelings involved. So San didn’t want to mess it up. Like having to spend the next month as a cat would have messed it up.</p>
<p>Still, it was nice to go to sleep beside Jongho. Hearing his breath next to him. And his warmth.</p>
<p>But San already knew that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cats could enjoy sleeping next to someone without worrying about things like feelings. They either trusted a person or they didn’t. A person would stay still long enough for a cat to get comfortable, or they wouldn’t. These were the things you were concerned about, if you were a cat.</p>
<p>Jongho was clingier than usual in the morning. It was annoying, because it made him slow to get up – but then he had to go out, and San missed the clinginess, then.</p>
<p>For most of the morning San laid in the sun and dozed. Mid-morning, he was woken by the sound of the door. Still sleepy, he got up to greet it.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t Jongho at the door.</p>
<p>San’s back went straight up. And he <em>hissed</em> at the intruder, who was Jongho’s master, but who had no right to be here. Jongho wasn’t with him; he had no right to be here.</p>
<p>The wizard came in, and San backed up toward the kitchen.</p>
<p>‘You’re not wearing your collar today,’ the wizard said. ‘Did you lose it? Or does my student let you run wild, hm? Or …’ He frowned, and he made a gesture that made all San’s fur stand on end.</p>
<p>And then he laughed.</p>
<p>San didn’t like that laugh; he began to growl, low in his throat.</p>
<p>‘You poor thing,’ the wizard said, with more amusement than sympathy. ‘Jongho went and messed up, did he?’ He wasn’t put off by San’s growling; indeed, he advanced toward him. ‘It’s too bad. He did seem fond of you.’</p>
<p>San made a dash, away from the wizard and into the kitchen. He couldn’t get the back door open though; there was no-one to open it for him. He <em>could</em> get the pantry door open with his paw, and slip inside the dark there. He just had to hope the wizard would let him hide.</p>
<p>Except, of course, he did not. San’s hiding place was no hiding place at all. And when the wizard found San, he grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and then, despite San’s protests, he <em>threw</em> him out the back door.</p>
<p>‘And don’t come back,’ he said.</p>
<p>And San was made to run, compelled by his fear and by the power in the wizard’s words. If he had been the bravest cat in the world, he still couldn’t have stayed when he was spoken to like that.</p>
<p>A small cat can run a long way. San didn’t know where he was going; he didn’t know the streets at all, from this perspective. But he ran until the urgency of his fear left him, and then he stopped on the pavement. He found a wall to hop up onto, where he could collect himself.</p>
<p>He couldn’t go back. The possibility of going back was a blank in his mind – he had been forbidden it. But still, he had to find Jongho, didn’t he? He wouldn’t want Jongho to think he had run away. He wouldn’t want Jongho to think that San could have spoken to him the way he had and then run away.</p>
<p>And that was what Jongho’s master would tell him, wasn’t it? He would wait for Jongho, there in his home, and then he would say, <em>ah, but he slipped out when I opened the door</em>.</p>
<p>Jongho wouldn’t believe it, surely. He would search for San. So San would have to be somewhere Jongho could find him. Not on their own street; that was impossible. But in the neighbourhood.</p>
<p>San began to walk the streets, with more care than he had run through them. He wished, then, that Jongho had left the collar in him, that San might be more recognisable. Occasionally he was forced to shy from a friendly stranger, or a child with grabby hands. It was better to get high – out of reach, but also closer to a human perspective.</p>
<p>Eventually, he was able to orient himself – then he felt more relaxed, and was less concerned for the attention of strangers.</p>
<p>He made his way toward the bathhouse.</p>
<p>Jongho was, like a cat, very clean. He might not come right away, but he <em>would </em>come. And he would find San then, and … and what? San couldn’t explain what had happened; nor could he wait a month to be found.</p>
<p>But it wouldn’t matter. Jongho would know once he found him that San hadn’t meant to run away.</p>
<p>San waited. He tried not to sleep, in case he missed Jongho. At one point, he left his post near the bathhouse to go filch some dinner from a street vendor; he got chased off, but he got some fish too.</p>
<p>And he waited.</p>
<p>In the evening, a family came by, with a small child clutching its father’s hand.</p>
<p>‘Kitty!’ the child said, spotting San; it let go of its father to go greet him. San shied back against the wall, but then he thought the child smelled familiar, and he stepped out to sniff its hand.</p>
<p>The child giggled.</p>
<p>‘Making friends?’ the father said.</p>
<p>‘We’re already friends,’ the child said happily. It looked up at its parents.</p>
<p>‘Oh,’ the mother said, ‘it’s the wizard’s cat. Did you get lost, kitty? Where’s your collar?’ She bent down to pat him too, and San meowed, <em>yes, yes, I’m the wizard’s cat.</em></p>
<p>‘Well, I’m sure it’ll find its way back,’ the father said. ‘Come on.’</p>
<p>San meowed again, and the mother frowned.</p>
<p>‘No, I’m sure he isn’t usually allowed out,’ she said. And she put out her arms, and San let her pick him up. ‘Should we take you home, huh?’ She scratched him around the ears, and San purred his agreement.</p>
<p>The father seemed unimpressed. ‘It’s probably not even the same cat.’</p>
<p>Except, it turned out, the mother and child knew <em>all </em>the cats in the area They enumerated them to the father as they walked. There were other black cats, but they were black with white throats, or their eyes were yellow rather than green, or they were mean cats that wouldn’t let you near. San was a little pleased, to hear how he tracked against the other cats of the area.</p>
<p>But as they got closer to Jongho’s house, he began to feel a foreboding.</p>
<p>Maybe it wasn’t enough to be carried. Maybe he couldn’t allow himself to go home again. He wriggled from the woman’s grip and onto the street, and he meowed at her.</p>
<p>‘Just leave it,’ the father said. ‘You’re probably taking it away from its real home.’</p>
<p>The child patted San. And San wished he could talk. He wished he could explain. He didn’t want to be like this, unable to get home and unable to explain why. But still, he couldn’t allow the woman to coax him back into her arms.</p>
<p>‘I think I’ll ask,’ the woman said.</p>
<p>‘Really, honey?’</p>
<p>‘It’ll take five minutes.’ She turned to the child. ‘You and daddy will stay with the kitty, won’t you?’</p>
<p>The father let out a heavy sigh. But he did, once his wife was out of view, crouch down to introduce himself to San – and to share his opinion that she was making a big fuss over nothing and you’re an independent kitcat, aren’t you?</p>
<p>Humans were pretty weird really, San thought.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, the woman came back, and bless her, bless her and her child and all her future children too, Jongho was with her. San ran up toward him, and twined himself around his legs, and Jongho thanked the woman profusely, as San made it as clear as possible that he had <em>not</em> run away on purpose.</p>
<p>The family left, after some last pats, and Jongho scooped San up into his arms. ‘What happened, huh?’ he said. He sounded bemused, like he couldn’t reconcile San’s behaviour now with his having run away. ‘I know you don’t like him, but running off is a bit much.’</p>
<p>He began to walk toward the house again. And San, reluctantly, had to jump down.</p>
<p>He let out a mournful yowl.</p>
<p>‘What’s wrong?’ Jongho crouched down. ‘He’s gone now.’ He patted San, and San butted his head into his hand. ‘So what’s wrong?’</p>
<p>San couldn’t say; he howled instead.</p>
<p>Jongho sighed. He stood back up straight, and he looked back down the street. He looked back at San. ‘<em>Did</em> you run off?’ he asked.</p>
<p>San couldn’t answer; he could only act as affectionately as a cat who would never want to run off from his owner.</p>
<p>Jongho stepped past him, down the street toward their house.</p>
<p>San stayed where he was, and he meowed.</p>
<p>Jongho frowned. ‘Wait here.’</p>
<p>San waited. He tried <em>not</em> to meow as Jongho left, but it was hard, because he’d been alone all day and he didn’t want to be left again. He was a little cat who very much didn’t want to be left.</p>
<p>When Jongho came back, he was carrying the collar. This time, San let him put it on.</p>
<p>Once the buckle was done up, San sneezed; the collar grew hot, and then cool again.</p>
<p>San meowed.</p>
<p>Jongho picked him up again, and this time San could allow it.</p>
<p>‘Why would he put a spell on you?’ Jongho asked. He sounded miserable. San wanted to reassure him, but it was awkward for a cat to do who was being carried like a baby.</p>
<p>But Jongho lifted him and kissed his fur, so probably San didn’t need to do anything anyway.</p>
<p>Jongho brought him home. After that, San ran around and sniffed everything to make sure Jongho’s master hadn’t messed with it. Jongho watched him for a bit, until he got tired and called San back, and San ran to jump onto his lap.</p>
<p>‘I think he knows,’ Jongho said.</p>
<p>San meowed.</p>
<p>‘I asked,’ Jongho said, ‘about transformation spells.’ He stroked San’s fur, and stared out toward the doorway. ‘He said there’s nothing I can do. The spell will break when I die, and that’s that.’ He seemed so sad as he said it.</p>
<p>San put his paw over Jongho’s hand, and Jongho looked down at him.</p>
<p>‘Maybe he was lying?’ he said. He sat up straight, and he pushed San’s fur back around the collar. ‘It’s just a spell,’ he muttered.</p>
<p>He took the collar off again, examining the weave of it beneath his fingers. San settled down on his lap. He had more faith in Jongho being able to do something than he did in Jongho’s master telling the truth. And certainly, he liked being a cat with Jongho alive more than he liked the thought of being a human alone.</p>
<p>Maybe he liked it a little less, when Jongho tilted him off his knee and went to get a needle. But then Jongho sat back down, and he began to work on the collar, and San sat beside him.</p>
<p>Jongho worked on the collar until it was late. San didn’t even try to bully him into bed; he stayed with him, and napped, and waited.</p>
<p>The next day too, Jongho worked on it – the stitches that added nothing except, presumably, power. At one point he tried the collar on San again, but it did nothing; San didn’t even sneeze.</p>
<p>Jongho kept on working.</p>
<p>On the third day, Jongho’s master came by again. San had been sitting on Jongho’s lap; he leapt up and hissed when the knock came at the door.</p>
<p>Jongho put a hand on San’s head as if to reassure him. Then he eased San off his lap, and he went to open the door.</p>
<p>‘Have you recovered from your disappointment, yet?’ his master asked, before he caught sight of San there behind Jongho. Maybe he saw the collar too. ‘Oh. You got him back.’</p>
<p>‘I did.’</p>
<p>‘Well, that’s nice,’ his master said, as if he hadn’t banished San from the house, and as if Jongho’s work hadn’t undone the banishment. ‘Then why haven’t you stopped by?’</p>
<p>Jongho didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, ‘I’m not coming back.’</p>
<p>‘Really.’</p>
<p>San crept closer to Jongho, who had made his hands into fists. ‘I’m sorry to let you down. But I can’t any more.’</p>
<p>‘Well, that’s an odd sort of gratitude. You know, of course, that the others will be hearing about this?’</p>
<p>Jongho nodded. He hung his head.</p>
<p>The wizard who was no longer his master shifted his eyes onto San, and San knew, without him having to say it, that he was thinking that he should have just drowned San. Should have wrung his neck, disposed of him like any other unwanted animal. That was the kind of expression he wore.</p>
<p>‘Fine,’ the wizard said, his eyes snapping back to Jongho. ‘Don’t come back. At all.’</p>
<p>Jongho nodded. And then his former master swept out, and Jongho shut the door behind him, and he leaned against it and he stared at San with big eyes, and he said, ‘I’m fucked.’</p>
<p>San didn’t see how. It wasn’t as if Jongho needed his master’s permission to do magic. Probably San just wasn’t capable of understanding all the ramifications right then; he meowed at Jongho to make this clear.</p>
<p>‘Right,’ Jongho said. And he went back to the table, and to working on the collar.</p>
<p>He worked on it for the rest of the month. He went out several times – delivering the copies he still had in the house, other errands that he didn’t explain to San. There were no deliveries, although the woman who brought the herbs stopped by occasionally just to chat. Perhaps San should have been concerned for Jongho’s livelihood. They were still eating, though, so things couldn’t be that bad.</p>
<p>Once, the young wizard Jongho had spoken at the meeting stopped by. He was worried about Jongho, but Jongho insisted he was fine; he just needed to finish his current piece. No, never mind about his master.</p>
<p>The young wizard went away again.</p>
<p>On the night of the new moon, Jongho stopped work on the collar. He didn’t go to bed, though; he stayed up, and drank a little, and read with San curled up beside him.</p>
<p>Until San’s transformation came upon him, and then it was him the boy sitting beside Jongho, leaning on him slightly, while he read.</p>
<p>It was, San noticed, a novel. He’d never noticed Jongho reading a novel before.</p>
<p>‘Hey,’ Jongho said. As if it were entirely unremarkable for cats to become boys in front of him. ‘That was a long month.’</p>
<p>San looked up at him, and he touched his hand to Jongho’s face. Jongho let him. He touched Jongho’s cheek with his fingers, and then his lips, and Jongho let him do all these things, until he took his hand and kissed San’s fingers himself.</p>
<p>‘Did you forget how to talk?’ Jongho asked.</p>
<p>‘I didn’t forget how to talk,’ San said, although the sound of his own voice was strange to him. ‘I don’t know where to begin.’</p>
<p>He sat back, and he looked for the shelf where Jongho had left the collar. He went to pick it up, holding it in both hands. It was bigger than he’d thought it was.</p>
<p>‘It’s not cat-size,’ San said.</p>
<p>‘I’m not trying to keep you as a cat.’</p>
<p>San shot him a quizzical look.</p>
<p>‘I don’t know that it will work,’ Jongho said. We’ll find out tomorrow, I guess.’</p>
<p>‘What did you do to it?’</p>
<p>‘The same thing I did before,’ Jongho said. ‘Protection spells, mostly. But they dispel things too. Banishments, for instance.’</p>
<p>San had forgotten while he was a cat; he remembered now. ‘He threw me out and then he told me not to come back. He cursed me.’</p>
<p>‘He said you must’ve slipped out.’</p>
<p>‘I didn’t.’</p>
<p>‘I didn’t really think you would have,’ Jongho said. But he screwed up his face in a way that made San think that he had, in fact, been afraid of it.</p>
<p>San took the collar, and he went and he knelt down beside Jongho.</p>
<p>‘Put it on,’ he told him. He pressed the collar into Jongho’s hand.</p>
<p>‘We won’t know if it does anything till tomorrow.’</p>
<p>‘Do it anyway.’</p>
<p>Jongho’s hands were unsteady, but he looped the collar around San’s neck. He pulled the end through the buckle, and he tightened it; the fabric pressed firmly against San’s skin, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Jongho finished doing up the buckle, but he didn’t take his hand away. He left it on San’s neck. And so he felt it, when the collar flared hot.</p>
<p>He met San’s eyes.</p>
<p>It was hotter on skin than on fur, and the heat lasted longer. It might have been too much to bear, if Jongho hadn’t been able to feel it too.</p>
<p>The collar cooled again, and San put his hand over Jongho’s.</p>
<p>‘I guess we’ll find out tomorrow night,’ he said. But he believed, then, that it had worked. He believed that was what the collar’s reaction meant.</p>
<p>He kissed Jongho.</p>
<p>Jongho made a surprised sound under his lips. But then he kissed San back, ferociously.</p>
<p>‘I wouldn’t have run away,’ San said, between kisses.</p>
<p>‘You can if you like,’ Jongho said, his own voice rough. ‘I won’t try and control you.’</p>
<p>‘Don’t tell me that,’ San said. ‘Tell me you want me to stay forever.’</p>
<p>‘I want you to stay forever.’</p>
<p>‘Even if I’m not a cat any more.’</p>
<p>‘Especially if you’re not a cat any more,’ Jongho said, and he pulled San onto his lap.</p>
<p>San supposed that, in this position, he had to believe him.</p>
<hr/>
<p>And it turned out that even if you were blacklisted and no well-off aristocrat or upward-looking merchant would hire you, you could still earn a living doing magics for ordinary people. It was a more modest lifestyle, but it was enough for two young men.</p>
<p>It was even enough for them to keep a cat.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528277">The Black Cat Nero (Stay)</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyevon/pseuds/Hyevon">Hyevon</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div></div></div>
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